May 31, 2018

Official Patch 8.11 Notes Released!

Introduction

Hi everyone, along with the release of the new champion Pyke, a massive rehaul on crit items and lifesteal items, new runes AND more jungle tweaks, Riot's jumping in this patch with a swath of buffs to some of everyone's favorite champions this patch.

Better yet, we're finally seeing some nerfs on our favorite cigar champion ban and a long overdue one on Xin Zhao as well. Looks like it's time to find some new God tier junglers...stay tuned and check out the full scope of changes below!

Summary

Patch 8.11 notes

Welcome to 8.11, part of our continuing series of role tweaks. 8.9 was mages, 8.10 saw changes to the jungle; this time around we're swinging into bot lane!

8.11 brings a bunch of changes to marksman items and runes, as well as base stat shifts across the roster. We're opening the door for non-crit builds to shine by adding or reworking new tools for spellslingers and lane bullies alike, and by reining in lane sustain to make early aggression a more effective path to victory. Many of these options should be pretty appealing to AD fighters and assassins as well, so make sure to check the changes out regardless of your lane preference.

We've also got some follow-up tuning to last patch's work on the jungle. We're seeing teams adjust to Rift Scuttler as a contestable objective in the early game, with laners becoming more willing to help their jungler secure the crab. We're slightly lengthening its respawn time so these river fights are a little less frequent, making the regular camps a little bit more rewarding to avoid pushing junglers back in experience across the board. A few of the stand-out scuttle slayers are also taking a few hits so other junglers can compete.

Of course, none of this matters if you're on Pyke's list. Don't let his support tag fool you—if you turn your back on the Bloodharbor Ripper, you'll find yourself sinking to the bottom of the sea. Or the ranked ladder. Same thing, really.

Sand Wraith Pyke (Rose Quartz)

Sand Wraith Pyke (Turquoise)

Sand Wraith Pyke (Pearl)

Patch 8.9's mana changes hit Anivia harder than most mages, so we're looking to give her some power back. Rather than return her previous level of waveclear, we're looking to up her potential in fights.

Q - Flash Frost

COOLDOWN12/11/10/9/8 seconds⇒10/9.5/9/8.5/8 seconds

DAMAGE RATIO0.4 ability power⇒0.45 ability power (reminder: this applies on both passthrough and detonation)

The new emphasis on early jungle scrapping is pretty much Graves' happy place, and it's left other champions six feet under. Dialing back his early dueling and putting a longer window on his full combo should slow the snowball a bit.

One thing every assassin needs is a way to dance in and out of a fight and safely put down damage. For Kha'Zix, that's the stealth from Void Assault . The brush stealth on his evolved R is currently giving far too much of a different strength, though: the ability to sneak around the map relatively undetected. We're removing that evolution bonus in favor of giving Kha'Zix more R casts—and longer stealth—when he's upgraded his ultimate.

W - Distortion

Energy restore on passive increased. Q, W, and E now apply cooldown reduction for the duration of their reactivation time.

Recent changes to Warding Trinket have left Lee Sin with fewer playmaking opportunities. Making sure he benefits fully from cooldown reduction should give him more to do with his baseline kit, and we also want to make sure he has more access to the energy needed to do so.

Passive - Flurry

ENERGY RESTORED ON FIRST HIT20/25/30⇒20/30/40

ENERGY RESTORED ON SECOND HIT10/12.5/15⇒10/15/20

Q - Sonic Wave/Resonating Strike

NEWHOW MUCH LONGERTimer displays on icon, showing second cast availability

NEWKEEP COUNTINGCooldown reduction now also applies for the duration of the reactivation time

W - Safeguard/Iron Will

NEWHOW MUCH LONGERTimer displays on icon, showing second cast availability

NEWKEEP COUNTINGCooldown reduction now also applies for the duration of the reactivation time

E - Tempest/Cripple

NEWHOW MUCH LONGERTimer displays on icon, showing second cast availability

NEWKEEP COUNTINGCooldown reduction now also applies for the duration of the reactivation time

Q - Gleaming Quill

E - Battle Dance

Taliyah has a lot of strengths that are great in pro play, and just okay elsewhere. A lot of that comes from Q's waveclear, so the bulk of our mechanical changes focus on that ability (with tuning elsewhere). Taliyah will have to work harder to shove a wave and roam so that her opposing laner has more room to punish those roams. We're also decreasing the terrain control she brings from her ultimate, as it's bringing too much utility beyond just its roam strength.

Base Stats

MOVEMENT SPEED325⇒340

HEALTH502⇒532

Passive - Rock Surfing

MAXIMUM MOVEMENT SPEED20-40%⇒30-45%

COMBAT LOCKOUT5 seconds⇒2 seconds

Q - Threaded Volley

REMOVEDAOENo longer deals area of effect damage

REMOVEDSTONES AND STONESMinions no longer take reduced damage from additional rocks

REMOVEDWORKOUTTaliyah no longer gains movement speed when on Worked Ground

Q - Siphon Power

R - Chaos Storm

The scuttle changes increased the value of early fights, and Xin Zhao definitely excels in that world. Having a strong early game isn't the problem, but being able to translate that so easily into a strong mid-game is concerning. We're toning down his offensive scaling and his ability to stick to opponents and force them to fight him so he'll have to work harder for that mid-game edge.

Base Stats

ATTACK DAMAGE GROWTH3.3⇒3

E - Audacious Charge

Zyra contributes slightly less in skirmishes than we'd like, but we're definitely not comfortable increasing her already-high damage. Some extra crowd control should give her more of an impact in those small fights.

E - Grasping Roots

ROOT DURATION0.75/1/1.25/1.5/1.75 seconds⇒1/1.25/1.5/1.75/2 seconds

Marksman Base Stat Adjustments

The dominant strategy in bot lane has, over time, become sustaining through lane phase and scaling up into teamfights. Between health regen and Fleet Footwork, it's pretty hard to put the hurt on marksmen in a way they can't just passively recover from.. This means aggressive bot laners ( whether early game bully marksmen or supports who want to poke or go all-in) feel like they have no home.

Weakening marksman sustain (health regen here, Fleet Footwork below) means damage will stick on marksmen, making 2v2 fighting a more successful prospect for the stronger bot lane. Shifting some durability from armor into health should also let aggressive marksmen like Draven and Lucian shine a bit harder in the early game.

Finally, we're nerfing marksman base attack damage by 4 and pushing that damage into their growth stat, with the breakeven point around level 9. Though that might seem counterintuitive with our goals above, it means aggressive non-marksmen (ex. Leona, Brand) won't be chipped down by marksman basic attacks as quickly—giving them more opportunities to secure presence in the lane.

Items

Marksman itemization is pretty focus on marksmen who want to stand still and basic attack. With Stormrazor, we're introducing an item for marksmen with longer pauses between attacks, whether they're kiting or just have long attack cooldowns (looking at you, Jhin).

TOTAL COST3200 gold

BUILD PATHB.F. Sword + Pickaxe + Dagger + 725 gold

ATTACK DAMAGE70

ATTACK SPEED30%

UNIQUE PASSIVEStorm's Edge: If you haven't attacked in the last 3 seconds (scaling down with attack speed), your next basic attack will critically strike for 160% damage (+1% per 1.5% critical strike chance, max 200%) and grant 10% movement speed for 1.75 seconds

Essence Reaver was intended to be the alternative late-game scaling item for marksmen who care more about spell casts. However, it turned out that once you had Essence Reaver, you also wanted Infinity Edge, and at that point, you also want a Zeal item, and at that point you might as well build up to 100% crit. The overall effect was a core build of 4 items that didn't allow spellslinger marksmen much choice at all.

We're reshaping Essence Reaver around a new power spike, allowing spellcasting marksmen to double down on their spell-slinging fantasy and unleash their spells in a rapid barrage.

The problem with an armor penetration item that only feels good against armor stackers is that most champs don't feel good about getting it early to ensure their damage stays relevant as enemies build armor (they want to be killing squishy targets instead). But once tanks really armor up, damage dealers feel bad if they didn't purchase Last Whisper earlier. We're moving Last Whisper into a middle ground so it'll still scale against tanks but feel like less of a dead-end against other squishies.

Total armor penetration is stronger than bonus, meaning LDR scales better with itself. To to keep the focus on the armor penetration rather than raw damage output, we're trimming some attack damage and pushing the price point higher.

Total armor penetration is stronger than bonus, meaning Mortal Reminder scales better with itself. To keep the focus on the armor penetration rather than raw damage output, we're trimming some attack damage and pushing the price point higher.

We wanted to allow marksmen who face heavy physical damage to get a Chain Vest (rather than just Cloth Armor), knowing they'd eventually build it into something. Guardian Angel was a natural choice, even if it required a higher price point.

Enhanced minions are highly resistant to magic and physical damage rather than entirely immune to magic damage only.

Banner of Command has emerged as an item that can effectively pin a mid laner at their wave. With how much gameplay revolves around wave control and roaming, Banner of Command does too much to shut that play down entirely..

Shurelya's Reverie has emerged as too reliable a rush on certain champions who want it for selfish reasons (rather than as a supportive, team-oriented purchase) Singed and Vladimir among them. We're shifting the stat profile slightly to make it more attractive to supportive champions and slightly less compelling as a selfish buy.

LIKE THE WINDFor the duration of the movement speed increase, you can pass through units

COOLDOWN60 seconds

REMOVED

Ultimate Hat

See context above for Ultimate Hunter.

NEW

Hail of Blades

One of the goals of runes is to give champions options about what tree they go into based on how they want to play. Domination is a tree about burst, which should make it appealing to some of the burstier marksmen, but there is no real keystone for them. Hail of Blades should help spell-based marksmen who want to lay down a swift chunk have a keystone to promote that playstyle.

HAIL OF BLADESGain 50-100% (at levels 1-18) attack speed for the first three attacks made against enemy champions.

NOW NOT LATERIf more than 1.5 seconds elapses between attacks this effect will end

COOLDOWN5 seconds out of combat

NEW

Ultimate Hunter

We've been looking into changing Ultimate Hat for awhile. As a rune based around a spike of power (a champion's ultimate), it's always felt like an exciting option for Domination. We're bringing it in line with the Hunter paradigm and have created a replacement for Ultimate Hat below: Nimbus Cloak.

BOUNTY HUNTEREarn a Bounty Hunter stack the first time you get a takedown on each enemy champion

Fleet Footwork

For more context, view the Marksman Stat Adjustment section. TL;DR, marksmen have access to a ton of sustain in the laning phase, which makes the choice between early and late game too tilted towards late game, and decreases the overall impact of laning decisions (like poke/bullying). Weakening the heal ranged champions get from Fleet Footwork should go a long way towards making trades feel more meaningful.

BREAK THE FOUNDATIONSNexus and Inhibitor Turret health is now divided into thirds. Turrets can only regenerate health up to the top of their current third.

Turret Gold

More of turret reward gold is granted locally rather than globally.

Similar to our bounty changes last patch, we're looking to decrease the number of truly global objectives in our game and allow players who have a large impact to feel that impact more personally. Accordingly, inner turrets will now provide more of their gold locally and less globally.

Scuttle Crab

Respawn time increased. Shrine duration increased.

The action around Scuttle Crab is making for a good mini-objective, but it's currently up too often, forcing too much of a jungler's attention onto its continuous respawn. To compensate for fewer overall Scuttle Crabs, we're pushing some experience back into the basic jungle camps (detailed just below).